What Social Classes Owe to Each Other | Page 3

force. If they do anything,
they must dispose of men, as in an army, or of capital, as in a treasury.
But the army, or police, or posse comitatus, is more or less All-of-us,
and the capital in the treasury is the product of the labor and saving of
All-of-us. Therefore, when the State means power-to-do it means

All-of-us, as brute force or as industrial force.
If anybody is to benefit from the action of the State it must be
Some-of-us. If, then, the question is raised, What ought the State to do
for labor, for trade, for manufactures, for the poor, for the learned
professions? etc., etc.--that is, for a class or an interest--it is really the
question, What ought All-of-us to do for Some-of-us? But Some-of-us
are included in All-of-us, and, so far as they get the benefit of their own
efforts, it is the same as if they worked for themselves, and they may be
cancelled out of All-of-us. Then the question which remains is, What
ought Some-of-us to do for Others-of-us? or, What do social classes
owe to each other?
I now propose to try to find out whether there is any class in society
which lies under the duty and burden of fighting the battles of life for
any other class, or of solving social problems for the satisfaction of any
other class; also, whether there is any class which has the right to
formulate demands on "society"--that is, on other classes; also, whether
there is anything but a fallacy and a superstition in the notion that "the
State" owes anything to anybody except peace, order, and the
guarantees of rights.
I have in view, throughout the discussion, the economic, social, and
political circumstances which exist in the United States.

I.
ON A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POVERTY IS THE BEST POLICY.
It is commonly asserted that there are in the United States no classes,
and any allusion to classes is resented. On the other hand, we
constantly read and hear discussions of social topics in which the
existence of social classes is assumed as a simple fact. "The poor," "the
weak," "the laborers," are expressions which are used as if they had
exact and well-understood definition. Discussions are made to bear
upon the assumed rights, wrongs, and misfortunes of certain social

classes; and all public speaking and writing consists, in a large measure,
of the discussion of general plans for meeting the wishes of classes of
people who have not been able to satisfy their own desires. These
classes are sometimes discontented, and sometimes not. Sometimes
they do not know that anything is amiss with them until the "friends of
humanity" come to them with offers of aid. Sometimes they are
discontented and envious. They do not take their achievements as a fair
measure of their rights. They do not blame themselves or their parents
for their lot, as compared with that of other people. Sometimes they
claim that they have a right to everything of which they feel the need
for their happiness on earth. To make such a claim against God and
Nature would, of course, be only to say that we claim a right to live on
earth if we can. But God and Nature have ordained the chances and
conditions of life on earth once for all. The case cannot be reopened.
We cannot get a revision of the laws of human life. We are absolutely
shut up to the need and duty, if we would learn how to live happily, of
investigating the laws of Nature, and deducing the rules of right living
in the world as it is. These are very wearisome and commonplace tasks.
They consist in labor and self-denial repeated over and over again in
learning and doing. When the people whose claims we are considering
are told to apply themselves to these tasks they become irritated and
feel almost insulted. They formulate their claims as rights against
society--that is, against some other men. In their view they have a right,
not only to pursue happiness, but to get it; and if they fail to get it, they
think they have a claim to the aid of other men--that is, to the labor and
self-denial of other men--to get it for them. They find orators and poets
who tell them that they have grievances, so long as they have
unsatisfied desires.
Now, if there are groups of people who have a claim to other people's
labor and self-denial, and if there are other people whose labor and
self-denial are liable to be claimed by the first groups, then there
certainly are "classes," and classes of the oldest and most vicious type.
For a man who can command another man's labor and self-denial for
the support of his own